Capitalist Country:
• has a lot of money;
• can contribute hundreds of millions of hard, valuable currency--not to mention invaluable equipment and manpower and know-how—to the cause of alleviating the consequences of a natural disaster;
• private corporations, charities and individual citizens can, want to and do contribute millions more;
• leader will shrug off carping of those who are jealous of his country’s power and prosperity and will act, rather than talk.
And it can throw a big, expensive party a month later, as well.
Communist Country:
• can barely clean up after its own disasters;
• since “corporations” belong to the state, no corporate donations without the consent of the leader;
• has no private charities;
• private citizens have barely enough of their country's near-worthless currency to feed their own children, much less help to keep others from starving;
• leader doesn’t have to shrug off any type of carping because no one expects him to act and he wouldn’t care if they did anyway.
Leader might throw a big, expensive party after his knee heals up.
It’s interesting to note that, until recently, few professional commentators thought to mention the “stinginess” or the delay of the oil-rich Gulf States to come to the aid of the disaster victims, especially of those in Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world.
BTW, Amazon contributions alone for Asian disaster relief are up to 14 million.
UPDATE: Michael J. Totten has more.
